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By Mildred K. Cho, PhD In 2017, the US FDA approved a gene therapy for the first time. However, it’s important to remember that the term “gene therapy” has been an optimistic misnomer for nearly…
By Margaret Waltz, PhD, R. Jean Cadigan, PhD, Anya E. R. Prince, JD, MPP, Debra Skinner, PhD, and Gail E. Henderson, PhD Age is an important consideration in medical screening, but calls for population based…
By Maya Sabatello Stakeholders’ engagement is key to achieving the promises of precision medicine research. It is needed in order to establish a sufficiently powered cohort of diverse groups that will allow tailoring disease diagnosis, treatment,…
By Susan M. Wolf & Wylie Burke Translational genomics challenges the traditional view that research and clinical care are distinct activities that should be governed by separate norms, rules, and law. Beginning with the Belmont…
By Mary A. Majumder, Christi J. Guerrini, Juli M. Bollinger, Robert Cook-Deegan, and Amy L. McGuire The 21st Century Cures Act was passed with support from both sides of the aisle (imagine that!) and signed…
By Alena Buyx, MD PhD Ever wondered what happens to the biological material you leave behind when you check out of the hospital? Nothing much, is the usual answer. However, the little bits of blood, tissue,…
By Sarah Ali-Khan and E. Richard Gold As Precision Medicine becomes a reality, molecular tests are an increasingly critical part of patient care. While patients and their physicians would like to maximize access, they have…
By Katie Stoll, Amanda Mackison, Megan Allyse, and Marsha Michie The booming genetic testing industry has created many new job opportunities for genetic counselors. Within commercial laboratories, genetic counselors work in sales and marketing, variant…
By Adrian Thorogood, BCL, LLB If every individual has millions of unique variants in their DNA, how can clinicians be expected to tease out a handful of disease causing mutations from a haystack of inconsequential variants?…
By Linnea Laestadius, PhD, MPP Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing companies are now a fixture of U.S. consumer culture, with dozens of companies offering adults on-demand insights into their ancestry and health (sometimes loosely defined). While a…
